# We need to fight them over there to help train them to fight us over here **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 29, 2007, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920 "2007-05-29T14:52:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Trotsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@Trotsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trotsky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/81 "2007-05-29T20:09:24Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Cite? [/QUOTE] Nope, you made the 600k claim first. You gotta prove it’s close to the # of bombed dead in WW2 conventiionally. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/82 "2007-05-29T20:13:33Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] That 600k # is debunked. [/quote] Cite? And be warned that a previous discussion showed that the debunkers did a sorry job of it. > [@](#): > > If you’re talking about Iraqi insurgents and jihadists, and old Saddam army bastards, ok. You cry for them. No, and that shows once again the sorry act you are putting on here. If you knew history (and you have shown once again that you don’t) you would have realized that I would had spared Saddam until getting Osama and buddies **first** , then later Saddam, We (and the Soviet Union) won WWII against Hitler and the axis, then we contained the Soviet Union (eventually) and did undermine it **later**. (Saddam here is the former Soviet Union, and I don’t shed a tear for them either.) Like Lincoln said back in the 19th century: “One war at a time gentlemen.” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/83 "2007-05-29T20:15:22Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] Nope, you made the 600k claim first. You gotta prove it’s close to the # of bombed dead in WW2 conventiionally. [/QUOTE] I never compared those figures. As for the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the war, [here’s a cite.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/84 "2007-05-29T20:15:56Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] How? Read the rand report on a nuclear detonation in Long Beach, of a primitive 10kt device. [/QUOTE] And that leads to world domination, how? Nuclear terrorism is still just terrorism. It is not conquest, it is not domination. How will the Islamists conquer the world? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/85 "2007-05-29T20:17:18Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Yeah, there was no “mass genocide” (whatever that is), but you mention “a lot of killing” like it was just a few broken eggs going into an omelet. Let’s not forget the ~1 million sent to “re-education camps” (many of whom died) and the hundreds of thousands that ended up in refugee camps or crammed into boats to get out. [/QUOTE] A mentioned “a lot of killing” as if it were the inevitable result of one country being invaded and conquered by another. I won’t defend the “re-education camps” by any means, but **Trotsky** seems to be saying they rank with Stalin’s purges as a matter of scale, and they don’t, AFAIK. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/86 "2007-05-29T20:17:35Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] It’s certainly not because they’re any readier to incarcerate offenders than we are. [/quote] Cite? Are you really going to make this difficult, **BG**? It’s pretty much a police state. Come on! > [@](#): > > No cite, I just note that the economy has been liberalized, compared to the setup North Vietnam had during the war; and South Vietnam, for its part, while it had a market economy, had nothing to admire in its human-rights record; and the regimes that preceded both were fairly oblivious to the concept. > > Of course, Vietnam is still not a free country the way that, say, Thailand is. OTOH, it is a free country in the sense of being completely independent of foreign domination. I’m sure a lot of the VC fought primarily for that, not for a Communist utopia. I still don’t see how you’ve shown that it is freer now than S. Vietnam was during the 60s. All you did was some hand waving. > [@](#): > > Vietnam is at any rate more prosperous, I’m sure, than it would have been if the war had dragged along another 5 or 10 years. Why? What if something like Korea had been set up-- with a division between North and South. South Vietnam might be like Malaysia or even Taiwan now, and N. Vietnam might be like the whole of Vietnam is. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/87 "2007-05-29T20:20:43Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] Nope, you made the 600k claim first. You gotta prove it’s close to the # of bombed dead in WW2 conventiionally. [/QUOTE] It was discussed before in the tread cited, I agree with **BrainGlutton** , if there is a new debunking of the Lancet report bring it here, otherwise I have to assume that the report being “debunked” was only an opinion by your sources. ---
**Author:** ![Trotsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@Trotsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trotsky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/88 "2007-05-29T20:23:29Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] And that leads to world domination, how? Nuclear terrorism is still just terrorism. It is not conquest, it is not domination. How will the Islamists conquer the world? [/QUOTE] In their mind, it leads to the formation of a global caliphate. Take out the top satan, and you can bring in the islamic leadership of the world. A nuclear strike, or multiple ones, will have you strounging for long pig. I guess that’s ok though in the end, just a ‘criminal’ matter. Or maybe it’ll never happen.. It’s just too impossible, right? ---
**Author:** ![Trotsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@Trotsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trotsky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/89 "2007-05-29T20:26:27Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I never compared those figures. As for the number of Iraqis killed as a result of the war, [here’s a cite.](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html) [/QUOTE] That site says at worst, at worst, 50k direct. And I really doubt that. It’s not like we carpet bombed the places. The numbers are clearly inflated, and most of the dead are jihadists and saddam army thugs that fought for him. I’m sure a ton of died in the inter-islamic warfare since, but that’s their fault, not ours. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/90 "2007-05-29T20:29:51Z")
Folks: Let’s not let \*\*Trotsky \*\*hijack yet another thread. Best thing is to not respond to him, and direct any comments you have in the Pit thread dedicated to him-- I think it’s already 5 pages long. He’s cluttering up one thread after another in GD. ---
**Author:** ![Shamozzle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shamozzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shamozzle)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/91 "2007-05-29T20:30:11Z")
**Trotsky** , do you actually think it would be a good idea to attack Iran and/or Pakistan right now? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/92 "2007-05-29T20:30:50Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] Nope, you made the 600k claim first. You gotta prove it’s close to the # of bombed dead in WW2 conventiionally. [/QUOTE] More than 600,000 people died in WWII due to bombings. Of course, it’s hard to pin down hard numbers and there are questions like, well, when all the industrial, distribution networks, and farms have been burned to the ground and people starve to death/get sick is that lumped in? But 600,000 killed is in the ballpark of the amount of Japenese alone. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/93 "2007-05-29T20:31:45Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] People like me? Do you have any idea? I’m pro women, pro individual, anti communism, anti islam. What ‘people like me’ have been on the left? [/QUOTE] :rolleyes: Proving my point. Not only an ignorant of history, but an ignorant of context. Get a clue: when I said “the left” I was talking about groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch that are constantly criticized as being on “the left” because they criticize the way woman are treated in Islamic countries (For a long time), and they also criticize the acts of the US regarding torture. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/94 "2007-05-29T20:37:32Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] In their mind, it leads to the formation of a global caliphate. Take out the top satan, and you can bring in the islamic leadership of the world. [/QUOTE] “In their mind …” … yes, but they’re religious whack-jobs. Merely because they have delusions of gradeur doesn’t mean that we have to cater to them. In what possible scenario will any western government turn over control of their land or their people to a caliphate? NONE. The only way it would happen would be if they could conquer us by force of arms. And they’re far, far too weak for that. > [@](#): > > A nuclear strike, or multiple ones, will have you strounging for long pig. I guess that’s ok though in the end, just a ‘criminal’ matter. A nuclear detonation in an American city or even multiple cities would be horrific. But it’s hardly going to bring us to our knees. We lost a major port to Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and it caused hardly a blip in the rest of the country. Al Qaeda is very dangerous. But they are not an \*\*existential \*\* danger as Nazism and Communism were. And behaving as though they are is merely giving voice to the propaganda of our enemies. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/95 "2007-05-29T21:01:07Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Cite? Are you really going to make this difficult, **BG**? It’s pretty much a police state. Come on! [/quote] I was merely alluding to the fact that the U.S. has [the world’s highest incarceration rate,](http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html) which I’m sure you already knew. [QUOTE=John Mace] Why? What if something like Korea had been set up-- with a division between North and South. South Vietnam might be like Malaysia or even Taiwan now, and N. Vietnam might be like the whole of Vietnam is. [/QUOTE] I don’t believe that goal could have been achieved in South Vietnam – which had to deal with a highly popular **native** insurgency in addition to a Communist enemy over the border – and if it could have, it would have required many more years of war. This is the kind of thing that’s impossible to prove one way or the other, of course, but I believe many more Vietnamese, north and south, would have died violently if we had stayed than died violently after we left. It’s the same with Iraq. If we pull out, there will be a bloody civil war. But if we stay, there will be a bloody civil war; it will just take longer and cost even more lives, including American lives. At some point you’ve got to cut your losses – call that “cut and run” if you like but it changes nothing. I recall one of the Middle Eastern folk tales of the [Mullah Nasrudin:](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nasrudin) Walking along a road in India, Nasrudin grew very hungry. He came across a man sitting under a tree selling small, green fruits out of a basket. Nasrudin handed the man a few coins – and the man handed over the whole basket; such fruits being very cheap and usually bought in small amounts. Nasrudin walked along, found a tree to sit under, and began to eat. He soon noticed his throat was burning and his eyes tearing. Another traveler – from Persia, like Nasrudin – rounded the bend and saw what Nasrudin was doing. “Fool!” he cried. “Do you not know the chillies of India?! They are for making curry! You don’t eat them whole! Stop and drink some water or you’ll be dead by sundown!” Nasruding kept on eating the fruits, eyes tearing, and making involuntary moans of pain. The traveler repeated, “Stop, fool! Stop eating the fruit!” “I am not eating the fruit any more!” Nasrudin choked out. “I am eating my money!” That’s what we’re doing in Iraq right now – eating our money. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/96 "2007-05-29T21:04:40Z")
[QUOTE=Trotsky] I’m sure a ton of died in the inter-islamic warfare since, but that’s their fault, not ours. [/QUOTE] **Of course** it’s our fault. We destroyed the government that for decades had kept them from each other’s throats. “You break it, you own it.” Furthermore, a lot of those 655,000 (more by now, I’m sure) Iraqis have died because the war destroyed so much of the country’s material infrastructure. That’s our fault, too. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/97 "2007-05-29T21:06:33Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Folks: Let’s not let \*\*Trotsky \*\*hijack yet another thread. Best thing is to not respond to him, and direct any comments you have in the Pit thread dedicated to him-- I think it’s already 5 pages long. He’s cluttering up one thread after another in GD. [/QUOTE] 5 pages in the Pit?! Geez, when did he show up here, yesterday?! That’s gotta be some kinda board record! ---
**Author:** ![Trotsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@Trotsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trotsky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/98 "2007-05-29T21:07:20Z")
[QUOTE=Pochacco] Al Qaeda is very dangerous. But they are not an \*\*existential \*\* danger as Nazism and Communism were. And behaving as though they are is merely giving voice to the propaganda of our enemies. [/QUOTE] You can’t imagine how much I disagree with you on that. Hitler probably would’ve agreed to just have the eartern hemisphere. The communists and islam want it all. The communists, while a major threat to world civilization, didn’t do things like 9/11. And, if you really look at the atrocities done weekly, wordwide, in the name of allah, you’d probably pass out. It’s.. easier to ignore, I think. And most people just ignore it until it blows up in their face. ---
**Author:** ![Trotsky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@Trotsky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trotsky)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/99 "2007-05-29T21:08:28Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] **Of course** it’s our fault. We destroyed the government that for decades had kept them from each other’s throats. “You break it, you own it.” Furthermore, a lot of those 655,000 (more by now, I’m sure) Iraqis have died because the war destroyed so much of the country’s material infrastructure. That’s our fault, too. [/QUOTE] It’s your fault. So when they exact revenge on you during their jihadist warfare, will you yelp out ‘I deserved ittt…’ as you expire? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2007, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920/100 "2007-05-29T21:17:18Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] I was merely alluding to the fact that the U.S. has [the world’s highest incarceration rate,](http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0818/p02s01-usju.html) which I’m sure you already knew. [/quote] …and which has nothing to do with your original assertion. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe that goal could have been achieved in South Vietnam – which had to deal with a highly popular **native** insurgency in addition to a Communist enemy over the border – and if it could have, it would have required many more years of war. This is the kind of thing that’s impossible to prove one way or the other, of course, but I believe many more Vietnamese, north and south, would have died violently if we had stayed than died violently after we left. Maybe. But even if we assume that is true, your original assertion is still questionable, and it’s also not particularly relevant (as I already noted). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/we-need-to-fight-them-over-there-to-help-train-them-to-fight-us-over-here/405920.md?page=6)